#i also project onto white male characters in media

[the-everqueen]

action items white people can consider to make fandom spaces more inclusive for bipoc:

rec/kudos/comment on fanworks made by poc

consider what roles characters of color take in your own work. do black and brown characters exist solely as emotional support for central white characters? are black and brown characters sidelined for white character arcs? do black and brown characters appear solely to Talk About Racism (aka be the Magical or moralizing force for a narrative)?

(consider: Not Doing That)

reflect on whose voices get centralized/prioritized in any given narrative

listen to poc who express discomfort/frustration/critique of the text or fanon without feeling the need to defend either (or recognize you don't need to insert yourself into some conversations)

conversations around racism in fan spaces almost always get derailed into debates about ships or The Literal Text, but in my experience some of the most alienating aspects of fandom are the subtle ways that white people signal us as "other," i.e. acting as though race and queerness are distinct categories (there are queer bipoc! we invented a lot of queer culture!), framing nonwhite characters as unrelatable or undesirable, and reproducing stereotypes in fanon narratives. these become exhausting to encounter, whether or not we're part of the larger fandom ecosystem, and because it's systemic, it becomes impossible to avoid. which means white people's escapism corner is another site that poc have to navigate very, very carefully.

[wilcze-kudly]

Hey so can we like stop with the "Zutara is for the girls and Kataang is for the boys" thing. It's silly and it's breakdancing just on the edge of gender essentialism.

The assumption that there is something inherent to Zutara that appeals predominantly to women and Kataang that appeals predominantly to men is dishonest because every ship can have appeal to all genders.

The discussion of the "female gaze" in Zutara and the "male gaze" in Kataang is also redundant. I enjoy dissecting the concept of "the gaze", however it is important to note that the "female gaze" doesn't have a set definition or grouping of conventions it adheres to. Lisa French,  Dean of RMIT University’s School of Media and Communication says:

“The female gaze is not homogeneous, singular or monolithic, and it will necessarily take many forms... The aesthetic approaches, experiences and films of women directors are as diverse as their individual life situations and the cultures in which they live. The "female' gaze” is not intended here'to denote a singular concept. There' are many gazes."

Now excuse me as I put on my pretentious humanistics student hat.

Kataang's appeal to women and the female gaze

Before I start, I want to note that the female gaze is still a developing concept

There are very few female film directors and writers, and most of them are white. The wants and desires of women of colour, the demographic Katara falls into, are still wildly underepresented. Additionally, the concept of the female gaze had many facets, due to it being more focused on emotional connections rather than physical appearance as the male gaze usually is. Which means that multiple male archetypes fall into the category of "for the female gaze".

The "female gaze" can be best described as a response to the "male gaze", which was first introduced by Laura Mulvey in her paper: "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" , however the term "male gaze" itself was not used in the paper.

Mulvey brought up the concept of the female character and form as the passive, objectified subject to the active voyeuristic male gaze, which the audience is encouraged to identify, usually through the male character.

To quote her:

"In a world ordered by sexual imbalance', pleasure' in looking has been split between active'/male' and passive/female'. The determining male gaze' projects its fantasy onto the female' figure', which is styled accordingly."

Mulvey also brings up the concept of scopopfillia (the term being introduced by Freud), the concept of deriving sexual gratification from both looking and being looked at. This concept has strong overtones of voyeurism, exhibitionism and narcissism, placing forth the idea that these overtones are what keeps the male viewer invested. That he is able to project onto the male character, therefore being also able to possess the passive female love interest.

However, it's important to note that Mulvey's essay is very much a product of its times, focused on the white, heterosexual and cisgender cinema of her time. She also drew a lot of inspiration from Freud's questionable work, including ye ole penis envy. Mulvey's paper was groundbreaking at the time, but we can't ignore how it reinforces the gender binary and of course doesn't touch on the way POC, particularly women of colour are represented in film.

In her paper, Mulvey fails to consider anyone who isn't a white, cis, heterosexual man or woman. With how underrepresented voices of minorities already are both in media and everyday life, this is something that we need to remember and strive to correct.

Additionally Mulvey often falls into gender essentialism, which I previously mentioned at the beginning of this post. Funny how that keeps coming up

"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" started a very interesting and important conversation, and I will still be drawing from certain parts of it, however huge swathes of this text have already become near archaic, as our culture and relationship with media evolves at an incredible pace.

And as filmaking evolves, so does our definition of the male and female gaze. So let's see what contemporary filmakers say of it.

In 2016, in her speech during the Toronto International Film Festival , producer of the TV series Transparent, Jill Soloway says:

“Numero uno, I think the Female Gaze is a way of “feeling seeing”. It could be thought of as a subjective camera that attempts to get inside the protagonist, especially when the protagonist is not a Chismale. It uses the frame to share and evoke a feeling of being in feeling, rather than seeing – the characters. I take the camera and I say, hey, audience, I’m not just showing you this thing, I want you to really feel with me.

[Chismale is Soloway's nickname for cis males btw]

So the term "female gaze" is a bit of a misnomer, since it aims to focus on capturing the feelings of characters of all genders. It's becoming more of a new way of telling stories in film, rather than a way to cater to what white, cisgender, heterosexual women might find attractive in a man.

Now, Aang is the decided protagonist of the show, however, Atla having somewhat of an ensemble cast leads to the perspective shifting between different characters.

In the first episode of atla, we very much see Katara's perspective of Aang. She sees him trapped in the iceberg, and we immediately see her altruism and headstrong nature. After she frees Aang, we are very much first subjected to Katara's first impressions of him, as we are introduced to his character. We only see a sliver of Aang's perspective of her, Katara being the first thing he sees upon waking up.

We see that she is intrigued and curious of him, and very excited about his presence. She is endeared and amused by his antics. She is rediscovering her childish side with his help. She is confiding in him about her own trauma surrounding the Fire Nation's genocide of the Southern Waterbenders. She is willing to go against her family and tribe ans leave them behind to go to the Northern Water Tribe with Aang. We also see her determination to save him when he is captured.

As the show moves on and the plot kicks into gear, we do shift more into Aang's perspective. We see his physical attraction to her, and while we don't see Katara's attraction quite as blatantly, there are hints of her interest in his appearance.

This is where we get deeper into the concept of Aang and Katara's mutual interest and attraction for one another. While her perspective is more subtle than most would like, Katara is not purely an object of Aang's desire, no more than he is purely an object of her desire.

When analysing this aspect of Katara and Aang's relationship, I couldn't help but be reminded of how Célene Sciamma's Portrait of a lady on fire (in my personal opinion, one of the best studies of the female gaze ever created) builds up its romance, and how it places a strong emphasis on the mutuality of the female gaze.

Portrait of a lady on fire's cinematography is very important to the film. We see the world through the perspective of our protagonist, a painter named Marianne. We also see her love interest, Héloïse, the woman whom she is hired to paint a portrait of, through Marianne's lense.

We see Marianne analyse Héloïse's appearance, her beauty. We look purely through Marianne's eyes at Héloïse for a good part of the movie, but then, something unexpected happens. Héloïse looks back. At Marianne, therefore, in some way, also at the audience. While Marianne was studying Héloïse, Héloïse was studying Marianne.

We never shift into Héloïse's perspective, but we see and understand that she is looking back at us. Not only through her words, when she for example comments on Marianne's mannerisms or behaviours, but also hugely through cinematography and acting of the two amazing leads. (Noémie Merlant as Marianne and Adèle Haenel as Héloïse. They truly went above and beyond with their performances.)

This is a huge aspect of the female gaze's implementation in the film. The camera focuses on facial expressions, eyes and body language, seeking to convey the characters' emotions and feelings. There's a focus on intense, longing and reciprocated eye contact (I have dubbed this the Female Gays Gaze.). The characters stand, sit or lay facing each other, and the camera rarely frames one of them as taller than the other, which would cause a sense of power imbalance.

The best way to describe this method of flimaking is wanting the audience to see the characters, rather than to simply look at them. Sciamma wants us to empathise, wants us to feel what they are feeling, rather than view them from a distance. They are to be people, characters, rather than objects.

Avatar, of course, doesn't display the stunning and thoughtful cinematography of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and Katara and Aang's relationship, while incredibly important, is only a part of the story rather than the focus of it.

However, the 'Kataang moments' we are privy to often follow a similar convention to the ones between Marianne and Héloïse that I mentioned prior.

Theres a lot of shots of Katara and Aang facing each other, close ups on their faces, particularly eyes, as they gaze at one another.

Katara and Aang are often posited as on equal grounds, the camera not framing either of them as much taller and therefore more powerful or important than the other. Aang is actually physically shorter than Katara, which flies in the face in usual conventions of the male fantasy. (I will get to Aang under the male gaze later in this essay)

And even in scenes when Aang is physically shown as above Katara, particularly when he's in the Avatar state, Katara is the one to pull him down, maintaining their relationships as equals.

Despite most of the show being portrayed through Aang's eyes, Katara is not a passive object for his gaze, and therefore our gaze, to rest upon. Katara is expressive, and animated. As an audience, we are made aware that Katara has her own perspective. We are invited to take part in it and try to understand it.

Not unlike to Portrait of a Lady on Fire, there is a lot of focus placed on mannerisms and body language, an obvious example being Katara often playing with her hair around Aang, telegraphing a shy or flustered state. We also see her express jealousy over Aang, her face becoming sour, brows furrowed. On one occasion she even blew a raspberry, very clearly showing us, the audience, her displeasure with the idea of Aang getting attention from other girls.

Once again, this proves that Katara is not a passive participant in her own relationship, we are very clealry shown her perspective of Aang. Most of the scenes that hint at her and Aang's focus on their shared emotions, rather than, for example, Katara's beauty.

Even when a scene does highlight her physical appearance, it is not devoid of her own thoughts and emotions. The best example of this being the scene before the party in Ba Sing Se where we see Katara's looking snazzy in her outfit. Aang compliments her and Katara doesn't react passively, we see the unabashed joy light up her face, we can tell what she thinks of Aang's comment.

In fact, the first moment between Katara and Aang sets this tone of mutual gaze almost perfectly. Aang opens his eyes, and looks at Katara. Katara looks back.

There is, once again, huge focus on their eyes in this scene, the movement of Aang's eyelids right before they open draws out attention to that part of his face. When the camera shows us Katara, is zooms in onto her expression as it changes, her blinking also drawing attention to her wide and expressive eyes.

This will not be the first time emphasis is placed on Katara and Aang's mutual gaze during a pivotal moment in the show. Two examples off the top of my head would be the Ends of B2 and B3 respevtively. When Katara brings Aang back to life, paralleling the first time they laid eyes on one another. And at the end of the show, where their gaze has a different meaning behind it.

We see Katara's emotions and her intent telegraphed clearly in these instances.

In Book 1, we see her worry for this strange bald boy who fell out of an iceberg, which melts away to relief and a hint of curiosity once she ascertains that he isn't dead.

In B2 we once again see worry, but this time it's more frantic. Her relationship with Aang is much dearer to her heart now, and he is in much worse shape. When we see the relief on her face this time, it manifests in a broad smile, rather than a small grin. We can clearly grasp that her feelings for Aang have evolved.

In B3, we step away from the rule because Aang isn't on the verge of death or unconsciousness for the first time. It is also the first time in a situation like this that Aang isn't seeing Katara from below, but they are on equal footing. I attribute this to symbolising change of pace for their relationship.

The biggest obstacle in the development of Katara and Aang's romance was the war, which endangered both their lives. Due to this, there was a hesitance to start their relationship. In previous scenes that focused this much on Aang and Katara's mutual gaze, Aang was always in a near dead, or at least 'dead adjacent' position. This is is a very harsh reminder that he may very well die in the war, and the reason Katara, who has already endured great loss, is hesitant to allow her love for him to be made... corporeal.

However, now Aang is standing, portraying that the possibily of Katara losing him has been reduced greatly with the coming of peace, the greatest obstacle has been removed, and Katara is the one to initiate this kiss.

Concurrently, Katara's expression here does not portray worry or relief at all, because she has no need to be worried or relieved. No, Katara is blushing, looking directly at Aang with an expression that can be described as a knowing smile. I'd argue that this description is accurate, because Katara knows that she is about to finally kiss the boy she loves.

Ultimately, Katara is the one who initiates the kiss that actually begins her and Aang's romantic relationship.

Kataang's appeal to women is reflected in how Katara is almost always the one to initiate physical affection with Aang. With only 3 exceptions, one of which, the Ember Island kiss being immediately shown by the narrative as wrong, and another being a daydream due to Aang's sleep deptivation. The first moment of outwardly romantic affection between Aang and Katara is her kissing his cheek. And their last kiss in the show is also initiated by Katara.

I won't falsely state that Kataang is the perfect representation of the female gaze. Not only because the storyline has its imperfections, as every piece of media has. But also because I simply belive that the concept of the female gaze is too varied and nebulous to be fully expressed. With this essay, I simply wanted to prove that Kataang is most certainly not the embodiment of catering to the male gaze either. In fact it is quite far from that.

The aspects of Kataang that fall more towards embodying the female gaze don't just appeal to women. There's a reason a lot of vocal Kataang shippers you find are queer. The mutual emotional connection between Katara and Aang is something we don't have to identify with, but something we are still able to emphasise with. It's a profound mutual connection that we watch unfold from both perspectives that sort of tracends more physical, gendered aspects of many onscreen romances. You just need to see instead of simply look.

✨️Bonus round✨️

Aang under the gaze

This started off as a simple part of the previous essay, however I decided I wanted to give it it's own focus, due to the whole discourse around Aang being a wish-fullfilling self insert for Bryke or for men in genral. I always found this baffling considering how utterly... unappealing Aang is to the male gaze.

It may surprise some of you that men are also subjected to the male gaze. Now sadly, this has nothing to do with the male gaze of the male gays. No, when male characters, usually the male protagonist, are created to cater to the male gaze, they aren't portrayed as sexually desirable passive objects, but they embody the active/masculine aide of the binary Laura Mulvey spoke of in the quote I shared at the beginning of this essay.

The protagonist under the male gaze is not the object of desire but rather a character men and boys would desire to be.

They're usually the pinnacle of traditional, stereotypical masculinity.

Appearance wise: muscular but too broad, chiseled facial features, smouldering eyes, depending on the genre wearing something classy or some manner of armour.

Personalitywise they may vary from the cool, suave James Bond type, or a more hotblooded forceful "Alpha male" type. However these are minor differences in the grand scheme of things. The basis is that this protagonist embodies some manner of idealised man. He's strong, decisive, domineering, in control, intimidating... you get the gist. Watch nearly any action movie. There's also a strong focus placed on having sway or power over others. Often men for the male gaze are presented as wealthy, having power and status. Studies (that were proved to be flawed in the way the data was gathered, I believe) say that womem value resources in potential male partners, so it's not surprising that the ideal man has something many believe would attract "mates". [Ew I hated saying that].

Alright, now let's see how Aang holds up to these standards.

Well... um...

Aang does have power, he is the Avatar. However, he is often actually ignored, blown off and otherwise dismissed, either due to his age or his personality and ideals being seen as unrealistic and foolish. Additionally, Aang, as a member of a culture lost a century ago, is also often posited as an outsider, singled out as weak, his beliefs touted as the reason his people died out and.

Physically, Aang doesn't look like the male protagonist archetype, either. He isn't your average late teens to brushing up against middle aged. Aang is very much a child and this is reflected in his soft round features, large eyes and short, less built body. This is not a build most men would aspire to. Now, he still has incredible physical prowess, due to his bending. But I'm not sure how many men are desperate to achieve the "pacifist 12 year old" build to attract women.

Hailing from a nation that had quite an egalitarian system, Aang wouldn't have conventional ideas surrounding leadership, even if he does step up into it later. He also has little in the way of possessions, by choice.

As for Aang's personality, well...

I mean I wouldn't exactly call him your average James Bond or superhero. Aang is mainly characterised through his kindness, empathy, cheerful nature and occasional childishness (which slowly is drained as the trauma intesifies. yay.)

Aang is very unwilling to initiate violence, which sets him aside from many other male protagonists of his era, who were champing at the bit to kick some ass. He values nature, art, dance and fun. He's in tune with his emotions. He tries to desecalate situations before he starts a fight.

Some would say many of Aang's qualities could be classified as feminine. While the other main male characters, Zuko and Sokka try to embody their respective concepts of the ideal man (tied to their fathers), Aang seems content with how he presents and acts. He feels no need to perform masculinity as many men do, choosing to be true to his emotions and feelings.

These "feminine" qualities often attract ridicule from other within the show. He is emasculated or infantiliased as a form of mockery multiple times, the most notable examples being the Ember Island play and Ozai tauntingly referring to him as a "little boy". Hell, even certain Aang haters have participated in this, for example saying that he looks like a bald lesbian.

I'd even argue that, in his relationships with other characters, Aang often represents the passive/feminine. Especially towards Zuko, Aang takes on an almost objectified role of a trophy that can be used to purchase Ozai's love. [Zuko's dehumanisation of others needs to be discussed later, but it isn't surprising with how he was raised and a huge part of his arc is steerring away from that way of thinking.]

Aang and Zuko almost embody certain streotypes about relationships, the forceful, more masculine being a literal pursuer, and the gentler, more feminine being pusued.

We often see Aang framed from Zuko's perspective, creating something akin to the mutual gaze of Katara and Aang, hinting at the potential of Zuko and Aang becoming friends, a concept that is then voiced explicitly in The Blue Spirit.

However, unlike Katara, Zuko is unable to empathise with Aang at first, still seeing Aang as more of an object than a person. We have here an interesting imbalance of Aang seeing Zuko but Zuko meerly looking at Aang.

There is a certain aspect of queer metaphor to Zuko's pursuit of Aang, but I fear I've gotten off topic.

Wrapping this long essay up, I want to reiterate that I'm not saying that Zutara isn't popular with women. Most Zutara shippers I've encountered are women. And most Kataang shippers I've encountered are... also women. Because fandom spaces are occupied predominantly by women.

I'm not exactly making a moral judgement on any shippers either, or to point at Kataang and go: "oh, look girls can like this too. Stop shipping Zutara and come ship this instead."

I want to point out that the juxtaposition of Zutara and Kataang as respectively appealing to the feminine and masculine, is a flawed endeavour because neither ship does this fully.

The concept of Kataang being a purely male fantasy is also flawed due to the points I've outlied in this post.

Are there going to be male Kataang shippers who self insert onto Aang and use it for wish fulfilment? Probably. Are there going to be male Zutara shippers who do the same? Also probably.

In the end, our interpretation of media, particularly visual mediums like film are heavily influenced by our own biases, interests, beliefs andmost importantly our... well, our gaze. The creators can try to steer us with meaningful shots and voiced thought, directing actors or animating a scene to be a certain way, but ultimately we all inevitably draw our own conclusions.

A fan of Zutara can argue that Kataang is the epitome of catering to the male gaze, while Zutara is the answer to women everywhere's wishes.

While I can just as easily argue the exact opposite.

It really is just a matter of interpretation. What is really interesting, is what our gaze says about us. What we can see of ourselves when the subject gazes back at us.

I may want to analyse how Zutara caters to the male gaze in some instances, if those of you who manage to slog through this essay enjoy the subject matter.

[cabeswaterdrowned]

🔥 anything tsc related

the biggest problem with Queen of Air and Darkness to me is that it really should have been two books. I really enjoy the grief exploration in that book in the wake of Livvy’s death felt cathartic to me on reread and I find Julian’s switch-off arc in relation to that fascinating. I enjoy Thule in terms of how it ties into the main arc with the blackthorns although I’m not crazy about the twp set ups from it. Basically there’s quite a bit in that book I do like but as a finale it’s rushed and disappointing. I also do think either Julian or Emma or both dying would have made the ending slay and I say this as someone who clearly looooves them both and Blackstairs (considering how much I love blackstairs as it is think I would be even more insane about it if we got full tragic potential realized).

Grace x Lucie is thee toxic yuri dynamic in tsc and I think ya’ll are cowards for not paying attention to it. Literally the only reason I would reread tlh is to write fic about them ChoI era because someone should.

on a related note Lucie Herondale reads as a lesbian to me, she says at one point she’s never been attracted to a boy other than Jesse who is kind of a phantom she can make into whatever she wants / project storybook romance tropes onto in a sense for most of the books and she reads as more attracted to Cordelia with the whole ‘Beautiful Cordelia’ fanfiction and like I said her most interesting dynamic with the most chemistry is her and Grace, so yeah I get comp het vibes personally I know that’s my subjective read.

I’m pretty neutral on Clary sometimes I really liked her sometimes I was frustrated by her but I do think this counts as unpopular since most either hate or love her. I do think she falls into the 2010s heroine who is written to have an overly romantically focused arc but all her interesting bits of characterization are about tangential platonic dynamics that the author doesn’t care to elaborate on much… but also this could be an ungenerous or overly generous assessment since it’s been years since I touched og tmi. I do side eye some people for giving Jace a lot of grace to be ‘complex’ and process his trauma and be dismissive of how much she goes through in the books ( I kind of hate Jace. without nuance)

I think I deserve one on one Tessa and Julian interactions in twp, not for any logical reason I just think I deserve it since they’re my two favorite tsc characters. And there’s a lot of fan service in recent tsc anyway… let me have this.

Kieran is overrated I don’t dislike him and enjoy him in the context of Kierarktina and as a foil to Julian, but I don’t fervently love him the way a lot of people do. (I also really disliked his fandom when the tda books were coming out so that might influence this).

I want Thule! Emma to come into play in twp … I’m very interested in the idea of her in the aftermath of Thule Julian and Sebastian’s deaths. I had an idea for a fic about her but didn’t write it partly because of laziness partly because I felt I’d have to go back to tmi to remember endarkened lore for that.

Grace Blackthorn discourse was kind of unserious… not because I don’t think people can have valid reasons to dislike her obviously those exist. What she did to James was sexual assault and of course fans who hate her for it are valid. But I COULD NOT with some of statements about her especially on twitter that were like ‘well if she was a Male Character ya’ll would never forgive her and she would never get a redemption arc she only does cause she’s a pretty white girl’ like GORL. GORL what universe are you living in what paranormal/fantasy media do you consume and engage in fandoms for if you think that a male character who does a nebulous magical consent violation is going to get Less grace (no pun intended) from the narrative and fandom than a female character and would NEVER get a redemption arc. I can’t even ya’ll are dumb. If I’m being really generous maybe they just don’t read/watch a lot of paranormal media other than tsc because otherwise I…

Thanks for the ask <3

(send me a 🔥+topic/fandom and I’ll give some unpopular opinions)

[secretsofthewilde]

About your post about misogyny in fandoms and shipping spaces, I do 100% agree how a lot of female fans do have internalized misogyny based on how they navigate fandom spaces. It doesn’t have to be extreme like hating all women, but people do have biases where they tend to gravitate to more male-dominated shows or would justify why they hate m/f or f/f bcuz it’s uncomfortable for them to write about the female body due to personal reasons. Which i used to be as a teenager but overtime i learned to come to terms with my own version of feminitity and became more comfortable with writing m/f ships. Sometimes when i see that brought up, im like “okay dont u see there is a problem there? like u discomfort of the female body has some ties to misogyny and u cant just write it off as an excuse for the majority of female fans.” Even the defense of the lack of female characters is also flawed due to the fact that some ppl would desperately two male characters together even tho one character was in two scene for less than 2 minutes yet completely ignore the other female ccharacter that has more interactions with the male lead. You could also throw in racism as this is also always used for WOC and justified as “oh not everything has to be about shipping” when those the same ppl that ship anything and everything in other fandoms

Yes, you are so very right!! And thank you for giving me an excuse to continue to talk about this. (Post anon is referring to is here x)

I tried not to generalise too much in the initial post bc I think there's different reasons and I guess flavours of internal misogyny which contribute to individual fans dismissal of f/f. Your example isn't exactly relatable to my personal experience, but it is one that makes sense to me and is something I assume is the case for many others too (including one of my best friends actually!). For me personally, I knew I was queer around the same time I got into fandom (so quite young), but despite being aware of this I still found myself feeling uncomfortable or even guilty for looking for anything f/f. I think that this was bc there was this ingrained fear that by engaging with female characters in any way I was sexualising them*. Which is ridiculous in retrospect, considering there's no sense of guilt for so many of us to engage with male characters in ways that are actually sexualising them.

Bc of the patriarchal society we live in we tend to see male characters as "neutral" ones (the same way whiteness is considered "neutral"**). By engaging with male characters repeatedly and normalising both the general celebration of them but also the sexualisation or queering of them, we ended up somehow creating an environment where male characters being queerified in fandom is seemingly more neutral than doing so with female characters - by which I mean that we expect to see people in fandom creating and celebrating m/m or m/f ships of male characters in any given fandom regardless of who they are canonically, whereas to do so with female characters is often considered to be unconventional or strange. I mentioned briefly in the post about the projecting of self onto male characters, and I think that's because they offer us a "neutral" character to explore queerness but also just multifaceted characters in general. There's so much more fanworks exploring things like the nature of morality or mental health issues using male characters than there are with female ones. That's because our engagement with female characters is kind of stuck in this area where we can't be neutral with them.

With the way that fandom discourse works nowadays we often analyse our characters as being figures of representation***. This means that even though we are now getting more media with female characters at the front of it, we often view them through the overly critical lens of "how is this representing us?". Even something as shallow as a joke about the character enjoying retail therapy then becomes something that is used as an excuse to tear the character apart, because we don't want to be seeing what we have been taught to view as negative female traits on our screens. Women can be bitchy, they can be jealous, and even evil. We need to learn to recognise that our discomfort in seeing them portrayed as such on our screens isn't always due to being upset about the representation of all women, but rather our discomfort in seeing these traits within ourselves.

*There's something particularly difficult about combating internalised homophobia when you're young and also learning about feminist ideologies where we want women to not be viewed as sex objects. I think this may also be a huge contributing factor for queer fangirls' tendencies to subconsciously project themselves onto male characters.

**'The Matter of Whiteness' by Richard Dyer explains this theory really well and is an academic essay that I highly recommend everyone read. I also think it's a pretty good starting point if you're not familiar with reading academic texts and are interested in intersectionality, racial bias, media analysis etc

***I'm borrowing from Dyer's theory here, which essentially argues that a black character's existence will always be viewed (and judged) as a representation of all black people. In comparison we will watch white characters and view them as their own individual character. To apply this to my above points; we don't question whether it's bad representation for our male lead to enjoy watching action films because we just view that as a character trait of his, whereas we will be critical of the female lead who enjoys watching chick flicks because we will then view her as a shallow representation of women.

[limeade-l3sbian]

Sometimes I browse TV Tropes for new media to look into. In my journeys, I have noticed an "interesting" pattern, that surely none of us could have predicted (/s). Whenever I find media that specifically depicts TIMs as meaningfully being women, without question or doubt (as in, things that "only affect females" will affect them, and things that "only affect males" won't), the media in question is also undeniably fetishistic, specifically in a deeply misogynistic way, and often pedophilic.

In each of these pieces of media (none of which are considered porn), I have found at least five (but often more) of the following concepts having a fairly consistent presence: BDSM, women dressed as young and effeminate dominatrixes (regardless of their character), women and girls being made to worn (often exclusively) fetishized outfits, mind control, women's attractiveness to men being framed as a deliberate "trap" or lie, humiliation (always targeting the women and girls more than the males), depictions of incest, fetishization of incest, fetishization of little girls (often via manners of dress, ways of speaking, mannerisms, or interests associated with them) depictions of female suffering being given much more attention and (often intimate) detail than depictions of male suffering, female characters being made to suffer far more than male characters (in general), rape as a major plot point, pregnancy through rape as a major plot point, author's obvious urination kink, author's obvious scat kink, depicting prostitutes as "empowered over" and "in control of" their Johns (even if their Johns are men in positions of power, such as president of the country) while still having sex with them and enacting male fantasies, magic that stops women from aging, magic that stops girls (children below the age of 18) from aging, fetishization of lesbians, exoticism fetishes (racism and xenophobia), women (and even girls) being depicted as either Madonnas (typically either mother figures or female characters who can be seen as some gross combination of a daughter and a wife) or wh*res (typically depicted as evil), instances of male violence being justified or excused by the narrative, female on female violence being depicted as more prevalent or severe than male on female violence, and females regularly enacting (often outright sexual) sadism on other females in day to day life.

Additionally, I have noticed regular themes of mind/body dualism, individual exceptionalism / "One Great Man" / "chosen one" narratives, thematically xenophobic narratives (the "evil" force is some undefinable "outsider," or maybe multiple different kinds of "outsiders," none of which are framed as comprehensible or worth anything other than total destruction; "white savior" narratives are also common, although, this occurs in Japanese narratives with Japanese protagonists that are equally framed as more moral and sensible than "outsiders," as well), and tokenization of minorities.

I understand that this will likely be seen as my own derangement, by people who still believe in trans ideology. They will believe I'm cherry picking, or maybe that I'm actively seeking out degenerate media for my own purposes, and projecting onto a group I "unreasonably dislike." It's worth remembering that I found this information through TV Tropes' "Random Media" button, and I began noticing this trend well before I "peaked," as it's called (which is to say, when I still believed in trans ideology, myself). If I'm wrong, it's because of confirmation bias, and nothing else. I obviously doubt that's the case. The correlation has been to constant, from my observation, and it carries over to the interests of the "trans women" I have met. They, themselves, have told me they have these "interests"--And the ones that haven't clearly correlate femininity with womanhood by overperforming femininity in misogynistic and often infantilizing ways. Maybe I am deranged, but I believe it's worth looking into, if nothing else.

1/2

[moonmoonfairy]

I wrote the following as a comment to a YouTube video reacting to video about shipping in K-pop relating to BTS. The comments on this video have since been turned off and I spent a long time writing it and thought I should share it where someone else might enjoy reading it. It comes off as very Intro to Shipping 101 because they genuinely did not understand why someone might ship, so tumblr users wouldn’t be the target audience for this post but oh well lol. Warning: this became a LONG comment which practically grew into an essay about shipping culture with a lot of gray areas, if you’re looking for black and white opinions about what is right and wrong, you will not find it here. I do offer my opinions on the subject, but who am I really? I’m just offering a look into different perspectives. With that out of the way, let’s get into it. 

I think there is some nuance to the shipping conversation as there is a spectrum of experiences with it. BTS is the first fandom I’ve been a part of where there was Real People Shipping (RPS), every time I had seen shipping before becoming an army was with fictional characters from books, tv shows, and movies. With young people reading less, and media literacy on the decline, I have noticed an uptick in the amount of RPS. Not that it didn’t exist before, but it certainly feels more common now with reality shows, musicians, costars, and YouTubers posting more of their private lives and/or using fanservice as a form of promotion (or this could also possibly be another case of the internet making things that were once more hidden/niche more visible, but I digress). I think the majority of shippers are teenagers and young adults who have yet to experience a romantic relationship in real life using shipping as an outlet for figuring out their blossoming sexualities. Women and queer folks especially have their sexuality stigmatized by society, it can feel safer for them to project their feelings onto someone else that is unobtainable. For straight girls, if both of the people they’re shipping are male, it can feel even safer because then they are equals (in many places it can feel like there is an inherent power imbalance between men and women because of societal norms) and because of heteronormativity, male/male ships can feel less likely to be true and therefore non threatening for those that self insert themselves into these ideas. I think this is normal and most people that do this grow out of it and feel embarrassed about it as they do. I don’t think it’s wrong for them to do this, it is certainly safer than exploring their sexualities in real life especially if they aren’t ready, and although I would prefer they do this with fictional characters, that isn’t a realistic expectation with how young people are consuming media. 

It can become dangerous when they head into conspiracy theory territory. As can be seen in the comments of many army spaces, these shippers are often mocked and othered which only strengthens their bond as a group, which can be very cult like. People prone to falling for conspiracy theories are generally a bit gullible and at their core just want to be special. They feel special for seeing what others don’t, and it provides them a community that makes them feel even more special and seen. In the case of Taekook or Jikook (and most musician based RPS) they have a ‘bad guy’ like ‘the company’ or just generally ‘homophobia’ they get to blame and try and fight for justice, they get to play the hero. I do not think these shippers are the majority, they are just the loudest, because they can’t think they are wrong or they will have wasted a lot of time and energy and essentially made a fool of themselves over nothing. You will most likely not be able to convince these types of shippers that their ship isn’t real unless you have an understanding of psychology and/or cult deprogramming. I would like to point out that I do not think Taekook and Jikook shippers are the only shippers behaving like this, I am just using them as an example, and I am aware of other shippers behaving this way. [ETA: I would like to point out that I initially only listed Taekook shippers in this section because when I first started following BTS they were THE conspiracy theory shippers, and Jikook shippers were generally viewed as more rational and casual, but since chapter 2 and the decrease in content, I’ve noticed a lot of Jikook shippers going down the conspiracy theory road so I amended it to more accurately reflect the current shipping trends.]

My biggest issue with these conversations against this type of shipping, which can be seen in your video, is that it is almost always rooted in homophobia. Another type of shipper is a queer person who sees themselves in someone they admire. From what I’ve seen, a lot of the time these shippers as the most casual. They say things like, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they came out, but I also don’t expect it,” sometimes they see themselves and how they behave with their partners in how some of the members interact. I think what gets lost here is the difference in cultural norms. What may be interpreted as romantic interest in one person’s thinking, turns out to be something straight guy friends do in South Korea (SK). 

There are two sides of the coin here in shipping in K-pop, fanservice, and how it’s interpreted. The first side of this coin is that everything really is just platonic. ‘Shipping’ as a term in SK means enjoying two of the members chemistry as friends, it isn’t romantic. Heteronormativity is stronger there because SK as a country is more conservative. It is playful for them and as fans we do enjoy it, it can just get misunderstood in different countries. Something that gets lost in these discussions about shipping, is that most of the time, casual shipping is just silly and fun. It’s fun to see two people being cute and genuinely enjoying each other’s company. This is a big part of why BTS is so popular.

We cannot disregard the fact that fanservice IS apart of the job in K-pop. A lot of people get upset when this is pointed out, shippers or not. It does not actually undermine their relationships to point this out because two things can be true at once. They can be close and good friends, and be playfully flirty on stage as fanservice. There are those who take it too far and shout fanservice at every interaction between certain members and that is annoying, but they are often stuck in those cult like thought circles, and again shaming these people will not convince them otherwise.

The second side of that coin is: gay people do exist everywhere in the world, maybe it’s not crazy to think one or more of the members might be queer. Something that bothers me is the argument that the members would be disgusted to be shipped with each other. First of all, they expect it because it is common in K-pop, and often feed into it. The members know that they are shipped and continue to behave in ways they know will be enjoyed in this way. An anecdote here: growing up I had a best friend that people often questioned whether or not we were together. We were not bothered when people thought this about us, we were not disgusted, we thought it was funny and often played into it because we knew what our relationship was to each other. I really want people who say the members would be disgusted that they’re shipped together to ask themselves: What if two of them are together or even just one of the members are queer, and they see millions of people saying that it’s disgusting. How would that make them feel? Although, if any of them are queer, they’re likely used to seeing this kind of thinking, but still, it probably sucks to constantly be faced with the fact that you’ll feel trapped in the closet forever. I think it best not to assume either way, straight or queer. We always see, “you shouldn’t assume,” targeted at those that discuss the possibility of one of the members being queer, but then those same people assume that they’re straight. 

If one of them is queer, they are closeted in a conservative country which can be very scary. If they are queer they are not obligated to out themselves and be a queer icon. Not just their lives would be affected by their coming out, the company, the other members, any other brands they work with, and their families and friends could be affected. With this in mind it is understandable why someone might want to stay closeted. The reason not to ship real life people should be that they are real people who deserve privacy, dignity, and respect, not because two guys together is “disgusting.” One or more of them could be queer, they could all be straight, maybe one of them is ace. Unless they tell us, we won’t know for sure, and people maybe shouldn’t go digging to try and put a label on them that they aren’t willing to put on themselves, but with how people view celebrities and their right to privacy, this type of speculation isn’t going to go away and it is quite frankly unrealistic to think that it could.

As a somewhat unrelated final point targeted more generally at homophobia in army spaces: BTS are artists, their art, music, videos, photos, and words are going to be speculated about, and people are going to dissect and discuss and relate to them in any number of ways. People want to connect with other people. No one person’s lived experience is universal, but we still seek to relate ourselves and our experiences to others so we don’t feel so alone. One of the biggest ways we do that is through media and art. I don’t think any of the BTS members would be upset if a queer army related to a lyric, or song, etc. I think they’d be glad that that army felt seen. Even if none of the members are queer, I think they have shown themselves to at the very least be allies.

If you read all of that, wow, you’re amazing, and I appreciate you. I hope it made sense and I hope you have a lovely day 💜

[blue-eye-samurai]

@ira-sairain exactly!! No one here is saying that ONLY biracial women (in this case Asian + White) are allowed to enjoy this show. We all understand that Mizu is a very relatable character who’s story + lived experiences will resonate with many different people. Having said that, though … it still doesn’t change the fact that Mizu IS canonically a biracial WOMAN.

Her gender is not “up for interpretation” in canon — it’s not an unsolved mystery by the end of season one.

Trans men are men, but Mizu is not a man. Mizu is a woman who has been forced to present as a man for most of her life and for reasons that have nothing to do with being trans masc. Plus, it’s a well known fact that women throughout history have often had to disguise themselves as men in order to survive, travel safely and be able to pursue interests that go beyond marriage and/or motherhood.

@kabutone you should be able to resonate with the lyrics of a song without erasing the original intent of the person who actually wrote the song.

People don’t actually have to be Black in order to enjoy fictional media like “Black Panther”, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay for non-Black folks to decenter Black people from their own canon stories.

Can y’all try to understand that? If yes, then why is it so hard for you to understand us (women of color) and our perspectives when it comes to Mizu in Blue Eye Samurai?

Stories are not JUST stories, okay. Mizu is not merely a blank canvas for all marginalized people to project themselves onto. Can ANYONE relate to Mizu’s story? Absolutely. But that still doesn’t mean Mizu’s story is actually about everyone.

Mizu’s story was written with very clear intentions because one of the co-writers of the show is in fact a biracial Japanese woman herself (Amber Noizumi) and she obviously shaped Mizu’s story around her own lived experiences as a woman of color too.

All the creators of this show refer to Mizu mainly by she/her pronouns, so it honestly does feel deeply misogynistic (and racist as well tbh) when some people on here constantly argue that Mizu isn’t canonically a woman.

Also, not everyone who lives + presents as male or “masculine” is going to identify as a man. Assuming so invalidates the lived experiences of many people who are marginalized and that definitely includes cishet women of color.

Honestly, I can’t help but feel like many of you with this mentality online are just completely incapable of relating to women of color unless we’re either A.) performing hyper femininity like Akemi does or B.) canonically queer as well.

And that really hurts a lot, especially because as a fellow biracial (Chinese + Iberian) and multicultural woman myself (who’s not traditionally feminine either but still very much identifies as a woman), I’ve never felt more seen and heard in my life until I saw Mizu.

There aren’t many well written stories about cis women of color in general, much less ones with heroines who aren’t traditionally feminine either but who still want to be loved and secretly want a soft life.

And yeah, I’ve seen some of you argue on here that maybe Mizu doesn’t identify as a woman because she’s never been allowed to openly be one. I get that and I hear you, but I still feel it’s deeply wrong to discount Mizu’s as a woman when she gives us a very valid perspective of being a woman — particularly one who doesn’t fit into society’s racist and misogynistic ideal standards “womanhood”.

Again, we are NOT saying that ONLY women of color are allowed to like this show, but y’all should be able to resonate with Mizu without striping away the canon narrative of her story.

This thread is already long AF, so I’m just gonna end it here by quoting the lovely @kenniex2 once again:

“media as a window and a mirror. blue eye samurai is a window for y’all you are on the outside looking in”

I don’t know how some of you could watch blu eyed samurai and still debate Mizu’s gender like hello ??? media literacy dead ??? Mizu is a woman, that’s the whole fucking point !!!! That’s her biggest crime !!!

Eiji couldn’t care less about her heritage but he literally cut her off when she tried to confess her gender !!!!

Mikio was fine with her being half white but the moment she dared to show him that -as a woman- she was a greater fighter it was over. His ego was irreparably hurt because a woman defeated him !!!!

And he calls her a monster !!!! He calls her a monster because she’s a woman and she’s strong she’s capable she can fight she isn’t submissive and that’s the point !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[princeescaluswords]

The reason stans insist that Stiles is ~groundbreaking~ because he's a ~feminine~ male character (when that's a load of crap) is because Stiles is merely a vessel for straight yt fangirls to live out their (white) power fantasies and get it on with Tyler Hoechlin's body. Which is why I use "Self Insert Stan in a Stiles Nametag" and it's why "always a girl" Stiles and "fem!Stiles" is so prominent especially where he's paired with Peter or Derek

Stiles is groundbreaking when it comes to fandom, but not in a good way. The character of Stiles Stilinski and the relationship of Sterek is when Fandom, after forty five years of projecting their desires onto various television shows, finally decided that they were not only free to change and manipulate canon at their leisure, but they could be hostile to canon for their own pleasure. The fact that they finally made that jump when the show had a minority lead protagonist is not a coincidence.

That's why your coining of the phrase "Self-Insert Stan with a Stiles Nametag" is extraordinarily accurate. It was a perfect storm to take that final leap, where actual engagement with the media they were transforming was no longer necessary. They saw Stiles, whom they saw as unpopular (except he wasn't), neglected (except he wasn't), and abused (except he wasn't) and then they saw a Very Good Looking Brooding White Guy who they were attracted to and they were off the races.

I don't know why they think Stiles is 'feminine,' but I suspect I know why they enjoy the character so much. As you pointed out, his story has aspects of a power fantasy. He's a character with no obligations or expectations of behavior put upon him, so he can be mean and cruel (the term they use is 'sassy') to other people and they still care about him if not continue to love him. They want that! They want the ability to lash out of at their best friends, their fathers, and random strangers, yet instead of reaping the consequences, being praised for it. Nothing shows this more than how they see the relationship between Stiles and the lead protagonist.

When I think of the way fandom treats the Scott and Stiles relationship, I remembering a quote from Moby Dick: "He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it." And that's exactly what they do -- they choose to identify with Stiles, and while there is nothing wrong with that at all, they only identify with the cruelty and the disregard. They don't identify with Stiles's self-awareness of his own failings and they don't identify with Stiles's love for Scott. To them, those are burdens that they need to get rid of, so they manufacture grievances that enable them to do that.

One of the big one is Scott abandoned Stiles for Allison, which never actually happened (though we've already established that Fanon Stiles is groundbreaking in its hostility toward canon). You want an example? Let's take Master Plan (2x12). Most of the meta in Master Plan is focused on the Neck Grab Heard Around the World, also known as Derek Gets Saved But Not in the Right Way, so no one notices the difference in the way Scott treats Stiles and Allison.

Fandom in their vehement envy, gets upset that Scott doesn't let Gerard kill Allison and that Scott takes the time to visit Allison at the end of the episode so she can break up with him. In their delusions, what they miss is that Scott doesn't actually mention Allison until the beginning of the final act, when Allison shoots Isaac. He says "Allison" after she shoots him, and then "Allison, stop!" and "Allison" when, according to the script, she approaches Derek to kill him. That's the only times he speaks to her or about her until the scene in her bedroom. I think fandom's claim of obsession is sort of flimsy.

Yet some of these people would demand that he let Allison die but not let Derek die. The fact that he does neither is what makes him the lead protagonist and the hero. Not that they care.

But here's the thing -- if Scott had abandoned Stiles for Allison, why does Scott have six different scenes across the same episode talking about and worried about Stiles?

ripping the door off the locker

getting the text that Stiles had been found in the Hale house

seventeen missed text messages

protecting Stiles after he hit Jackson with the jeep

asking Stiles if he was okay "What?" "He scratched my jeep."

the entire final scene of the episode and the season

Notice that Stiles is on Scott's mind the entire episode, and Allison certainly isn't. But, remember, they don't have any responsibility to canon. They've created a fanon alternative where Scott doesn't care about Stiles, because ... they want to hate Scott for not caring about Stiles. If Stiles has become, for parts of the fandom, the Self-Insert Stan with a Stiles Nametag, then Scott has become the Amalgamation of Whomever Has Hurt the Self-Insert Stan.

And when actual fans of the actual show object, they pretend that this is not what they're doing, which is what they always do -- steal stories to make themselves feel better.

[zintranslations]

Kaleidoscope of Death, Extra 3

Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu Link to Chinese / Novel Updates

Extra: Shameless Couple (2)

Ruan Nanzhu's stint as an actor was purely for fun, so nobody took the matter very seriously. But months later, as Ruan Nanzhu sat around bored at home with nothing to do, he got a call from Zhang Yiqing. The movie was premiering, and Zhang Yiqing sent him two free tickets for him to go have a look.

Tickets in hand, Ruan Nanzhu invited Lin Qiushi to go see the movie together. The two arrived happily at the theater, Lin Qiushi bought a bucket of popcorn, and they sat down in the audience.

The movie was a hundred minutes total; Lin Qiushi didn't have high expectations coming in, but afterwards, he was completely blown away. Though Zhang Yiqing had been an actor and had never gone through an official director’s program, he obviously had quite a lot of talent in the realm of directing. At least, the techniques he used to shoot this wuxia film that Ruan Nanzhu got a cameo in were good enough to provoke cheers and applause.

Ruan Nanzhu, playing the prince in the movie, was also exceptional.

But after they watched it, that was that. Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu went home without thinking too much on the matter, until the next day when Lin Qiushi opened up his social media and saw that Ruan Nanzhu's character was trending…He didn't understand such things very well. He clicked into the tag and found many people gushing about Ruan Nanzhu's acting and good looks, and asking how come they'd not seen this new actor before. No one thought that this new guy with so few lines would be so eye-catching.

Lin Qiushi woke the bleary-eyed Ruan Nanzhu and pushed the phone in front of his face.

"Nanzhu, are you famous?"

Ruan Nanzhu opened his eyes and peered once at the phone screen before pushing Lin Qiushi down into bed again. He kissed Lin Qiushi's chin and said, "forget about that…"

Lin Qiushi, "oh…"

Ruan Nanzhu had little actual concept of himself going viral, so when he was having lunch with Lin Qiushi one day, he was actually pretty irritated to get Zhang Yiqing's phone call.

"I'm just a minor side character," he said, "why should I go on your publicity tour? What? Blacklist me? Did you take the wrong meds this morning? I'm not even in the industry, blacklist me all you want—"

Lin Qiushi listened at the side and found it funny, but then Zhang Yiqing said something at the end, and Ruan Nanzhu actually stopped refusing. Brows furrowing, he looked up once at Lin Qiushi before agreeing to Zhang Yiqing's request to go on a publicity tour with him and the cast.

After hanging up, Ruan Nanzhu said that Zhang Yiqing wanted him to go do publicity for a bit of time.

"Go," Lin Qiushi said. "But if you really dislike it, don't force yourself. We lack for nothing."

"Mh." Ruan Nanzhu nodded, taking Lin Qiushi's words to heart.

After that, Lin Qiushi's projects got busy as well, and he didn't have the time to pay attention to developments around Ruan Nanzhu's movie. The point at which he realized Ruan Nanzhu was well and truly famous was when he discovered that a young employee had switched her desktop screensaver to a picture of Ruan Nanzhu. Lin Qiushi had even thought he'd been seeing things at first, pointing at the screensaver and asking the girl, "who's this?"

The girl turned to Lin Qiushi with an expression of excitement and began a fanatic recommendation of Ruan Nanzhu, saying how this was a super popular newcomer named Yu Qiuqiu, and not only was he good looking but is acting was also amazing!

Lin Qiushi, "…" Alright alright, enough already. I know exactly how amazing his acting is.

That night, Lin Qiushi stared thoughtfully at Ruan Nanzhu, who was in his pajamas in the kitchen, watching TV.

Ruan Nanzhu noticed Lin Qiushi's gaze. He turned around to ask, "what is it?"

Lin Qiushi, "Nanzhu…"

Ruan Nanzhu, "hm?"

Lin Qiushi, "are you famous?"

Ruan Nanzhu, "famous? What do you mean?"

Seeing his bewildered expression, Lin Qiushi had no choice but to change his wording: "Is Yu Qiuqiu famous?" And this bastard even debuted with his pseudonym.

Ruan Nanzhu slapped a hand to his thigh. "Yeah! Our Qiuqiu is super famous! Zhang Yiqing recommended me to his friends trying to make me the main character—"

Lin Qiushi, "isn't that a good thing?"

Ruan Nanzhu, "how is it a good thing? If I'm making movies I have to run around all the time. I can't keep you company like that."

Lin Qiushi thought about it.

"But you're just doing it for fun, so you don't have to worry about all that. You don't have to film if you don't want to. If you're tired you can just take a break." Other stars may have burdens, but Ruan Nanzhu didn't.

"Okay then," Ruan Nanzhu agreed. Then he seemed to recall something. "Right. The newcomer from Obsidian came to set a couple of times. I ignored him, but tell Ye Niao that if he keeps coming, I might not be able to handle it."

It took Lin Qiushi a long while to remember the existence of this person—it seemed to be the newcomer coveting Ruan Nanzhu for his good looks, who was under the impression that Lin Qiushi had taken Ruan Nanzhu by force.

He asked, "what do you mean by not being able to handle it?"

Ruan Nanzhu, "I might not be able to handle it and end up decking him, of course."

Lin Qiushi, "…"

The facts were, after being baptized by the doors, their bodies had all become stronger than those of normal people. This was the case for Lin Qiushi. He'd thought at first that he would be around Ruan Nanzhu's level, but then one evening, he’d discovered that he wasn't Ruan Nanzhu's opponent at all. Ruan Nanzhu, who'd wanted to try some fun little technique, restrained Lin Qiushi with ease; a single hand was all it took to pressed both of Lin Qiushi's above their heads. That hand that looked as pale and delicate as jade had felt just like a metal shackle, and no matter how Lin Qiushi struggled, it hadn’t budge an inch.

Also, every time he picked Lin Qiushi up to go wash, Ruan Nanzhu could lift him, a healthy grown adult male, in one arm.

Afterthis discovery, Lin Qiushi had laughed at himself for worrying about Ruan Nanzhu getting mistreated outside—Lin Qiushi counted all of them lucky that Ruan Nanzhu wasn’t mistreating people.

"Don't worry about it." For the above reasons, Lin Qiushi said as much. "If he really annoys you, do what you must."

Ruan Nanzhu nodded.

Just a few days after they'd discussed the matter, Lin Qiushi went to check in on Ruan Nanzhu at work. Ruan Nanzhu was filming a modern movie this time, and played a handsome serial killer in the script. Lin Qiushi thought this character setting rather suited Ruan Nanzhu.

He was waiting on the curbside at first. But then his ears caught onto a strange noise. It sounded like a person…keening. Lin Qiushi heard this, and his brows puckered. He turned and looked into a small, dark alley. The film was being shot in the studio backlot, which was complicated and filled with architecture of various styles. So naturally, there were plenty of out-of-the-way spots that the cameras can't capture.

Just as Lin Qiushi was wondering if he ought to take a look, he heard Ruan Nanzhu's voice.

And Ruan Nanzhu sounded a bit dark, a bit scratchy, when he said, "feels good?"

Lin Qiushi, "…"

He padded silently to the entrance of the alley and saw Ruan Nanzhu standing inside. There was another person kneeling in front of Ruan Nanzhu. Though it was dark enough that Lin Qiushi couldn't really make out the other person's face, the scene before him wasn't anywhere as raunchy as he'd imagined.

That person was lying on the ground like a dead dog. Ruan Nanzhu heard his footsteps and turned around, and when he saw Lin Qiushi, he hung a faint smile up where a cold expression had previously been. His motions were natural as he rolled down his sleeves, approaching Lin Qiushi.

"What brings you here?"

Lin Qiushi glanced at the man hanging on his last breath lying on the floor.

"He's not dead, is he?"

"Of course not, I know when to stop." Ruan Nanzhu came over, seeming like a sweet and adorable big kitty, as if the icy ruthlessness from before had all been an illusion. "We'll call him an ambulance. He'll be fine."

"I…I'm calling the cops…" The person's call from the ground was as faint as a mosquito's. "You…you hit me…"

It was only then that Lin Qiushi identified this person. Wasn't this the newcomer from Obsidian that Ruan Nanzhu had mentioned only a few days ago? Lin Qiushi hadn't expected the guy to still be harassing Ruan Nanzhu, and had apparently pissed Ruan Nanzhu off enough to get beaten up so badly that not even his own mother could recognize him.

Man, how complicated his feelings must have been when a single slap from Ruan Nanzhu, who’d seemed like nothing more than a little white bunny, was enough to take him down.

Lin Qiushi said, "if he still has the strength to threaten us, then we probably don't need to call an ambulance."

Ruan Nanzhu, "no need. I avoided all the vital areas—'tis all just flesh wounds."

Lin Qiushi nodded, fished out his phone, and gave Ye Niao a call. Ye Niao was furious. He said he was on his way and urged Lin Qiushi not to be angry.

After Lin Qiushi hung up he lifted Ruan Nanzhu's hand.

"You're not hurt, are you?"

"I am," Ruan Nanzhu pouted. "Look, it's injured."

Lin Qiushi searched the hand all over at this, and finally found a single patch of broken skin no bigger than his pinky. He looked back at the man beaten to a pulp beside them, then back at the wound on the back of Ruan Nanzhu's hand. Finally, he couldn't hold in his laughter anymore.

"You're so…"

Laughter also surfaced in Ruan Nanzhu's eyes.

Ye Niao came quickly and dragged that person off like he was dragging out the trash. Before he left he even apologized to Lin Qiushi for his poor judgment and for choosing such a person…

Lin Qiushi said, "don't worry about it. Everybody makes mistakes."

The matter pretty much ended there. Lin Qiushi never saw that person again, and no police ever came to bother them. Ye Niao took neat care of the matter.

"They didn't give you a hard time, did they?" This was what Lin Qiushi asked Ruan Nanzhu after they got home.

Ruan Nanzhu, in response, "who's they?"

Lin Qiushi, "the cast and crew, of course."

Ruan Nanzhu slid off in thought. "They think I'm being kept by some heavy hitter, and mess around with the mob…"

Lin Qiushi, "…"

Ruan Nanzhu, "so, they're actually pretty respectful?"

At this, Lin Qiushi didn't know for a moment whether he ought to laugh or cry. Ruan Nanzhu himself was the heaviest hitter—why would he possibly be the kept boy of one? But since he liked to act so much, there was no harm in Lin Qiushi playing along. They still had a long time together, after all. There were plenty of things for them to try.

Ruan Nanzhu scooted close to Lin Qiushi, setting his chin on Lin Qiushi's shoulder and mumbling something about being sleepy. Lin Qiushi stroked his hair like he was petting a giant cat. This animal, when tamed, seemed just like an overgrown kitty, but if you actually pissed him off, he was actually a ruthless beast.

But this was a beast that would never extend its claws at Lin Qiushi, was all.

Translator’s Note:

The term translated as “heavy hitter” here, 大佬, has actually appeared often in the text. It’s a slang term that kind of means “the big guy,” as in the boss, the one with the most experience, etc. RNZ gets called this a lot, especially in the Hako Onna door.

[Extra: Shameless Couple(1)] | [Extra: Twin Lives, Twin Deaths(1)]

[multimetaverse]

thoughts on the doafp season 2 trailer?

It looks like S2 will be great. I was impressed by how little evidence of covid restrictions there were; that will definitely help the series age well. I thought it was likely that Sam would move in and I’m excited to see how that plays out. The mother-daughter growing apart angst is going to be brutal to watch but there's a lot the writers can do with it. Interesting that they’re focusing so much on Melissa’s redemption right off the bat and that they’re also introducing a school play story line. I’m withholding judgement on the use of Gina Rodriguez as Elena’s conscience but it does make sense to increase her role since she’s by far the most famous cast member.

I was very pleasantly surprised that the trailer focused so much on Bobby’s story line. The biggest shock was that they included a brief shot of Bobby and CJ smiling at each other in the high school hallway. I’ve thought that CJ is a likely choice to be Bobby’s real love interest ever since it became clear last fall that Donovin Miller had joined the cast. He’s the right age, non-white, and only shows up in 2x06 which is very late but makes sense if CJ and his role in Bobby’s story line is subject to Disney restrictions that straight characters don’t have to worry about. It’s interesting that CJ is featured in the part of the trailer where Elena talks about being there for others and lifting them up, it strongly suggests that CJ will be a positive influence on Bobby. A lot of the Bobby clips look pretty angsty and with CJ only first appearing in 2x06 I’ve speculated that there could be a shift in Bobby’s story line then or an old one wraps up and CJ helps launch a new one. 

That scene of Bobby walking at night with Liam is almost certainly Bobby coming out to Liam in 2x10, a scene which Brandon has been hyping up for a while. Nathan was also on set that night but perhaps he leaves earlier or joins later. There’s also the possibility that Bobby comes out to Danny earlier but it’s hard to tell which ep that could be since Danny is in every ep except 2x09 this season. Of course, it could also be a misdirect and Bobby decides he’s not ready to tell him yet. I’m shocked that Danny somehow found out that Bobby had a crush, on what he thinks was a girl, back in 7th grade. I can’t wait to see how that comes up, did Bobby let something slip or were they talking about Monyca? Also I think that Bobby on the blue couch is him talking to Cami about struggling to come out which I’m sure will be well done. I’d love to see Cami coming out to her own parents but I really don’t know if Disney will allow that when it looks like the writers already have quite a bit packed in to Bobby’s coming out arc. 

We’ll also go a long way to finding out whether Brandon has been hyping Cartero because he has been explicitly told that Liam is meant to be bisexual regardless of whether Disney ever allows it or whether he’s been projecting his own bisexuality onto Liam without any basis in reality. That being said, I don’t think we’ll actually get canon Cobby or Cartero this season and any canon relationship for Bobby would only come in the 3rd season if they’re lucky enough to get one. Back in the fall Ilana liked a tweet that said writers should normalize interracial relationships that don’t involve a white person and I think she’s applying that to Bobby’s story line and that we can rule out his love interest being white. It’s a bold move for a Disney show since even most of their straight interracial relationships involve one white person. Not to mention Disney has a poor track record of how they treat their black male characters, something Doafp seems determined to improve on. 

There’s also the unfortunate fact that there will be limits on what Disney allows but I’m confident that the show will make history with Bobby coming out to his family and friends by season’s end. There will be a price to pay for all this lgbtq rep and I think the show being released all at once which will likely doom any hopes of S3 is part of that. Disney did something similar with The Owl House which is the only Disney show to surpass Doafp’s level of lgbtq rep, the show was cancelled and the 3rd season will consist of only three 44 minutes eps (if you haven’t watched The Owl House yet you should, it’s a hoot). 

The trailer seems to confirm what was evident from the cast’s social media posts while filming, that Ziggy only has a very small role and is largely absent. Presumably he goes to another high school but it’s gonna be hard to reintegrate him back into the show if they get a S3 and he’s the only one who wasn’t around for Bobby’s coming out arc. We saw Tony Espinoza’s character on stage with Elena during the student rep speeches so he’s connected to that story in some fashion. Brogan Hall’s character Tripp is absent from the trailer but we know he’s in 5 eps, most in the first 6 eps of the season and he seems to be Elena’s main opponent in the student rep race. Also not much of Jessica and nothing of Joey. 

I’m curious to see how all these story lines fit into only 10 eps especially when so many of the recurring characters are in so many of the eps: Liam and Sasha are both in all 10 eps, Danny in 9, even Melissa is in 7 eps this season. Some story lines and characters will probably fall through the cracks. We know Ilana directed 2x09 so we’ll see if that’s a special ep. Fwiw Charlie on twitter said that his favourite eps were 2x03, 2x05, 2x07, and 2x09, presumably some of those eps focus on Bobby coming out to Cami and his family at least. 

I really hope that we get a miracle and Doafp gets a 3rd season but with the news that the Doogie Howser reboot is getting the standard weekly release starting in September it makes it more and more likely that Disney is airing all the eps at once just to burn them off. On the plus side the trailer on the official Disney twitter account has over 811 000 views as of me writing this so perhaps a proper advertising campaign could draw a larger audience if Disney is willing to put the effort in. 

[luna-rainbow]

It's very sus to me how the two women Marvel insists on promoting the most (Nat and Peggy) have VERY similar physical appearances. Both are white women, are quite curvy/busty but slim, and even have somewhat similar facial features. They both also have that sultry disposition about them as well.

Thanks for the ask!

Erm, is this in What If or in the live action? To me, ScarJo and Atwell look nothing alike LOL I didn't really like Nat until BW, to be honest. Nat always felt for me - I don't think the term I'm looking for is quite Mary Sue - something like a fanboy insert. She was too much of a wish-fulfillment trope. She was just a little too perfect, but only perfect in the sense that it fulfilled a purpose for another male character, rather than fleshing out her own characterisation. Natasha was the OG sex symbol (I'm just looking at clips of IM2 and wow the number of ass shots and cleavage) so I'm not at all surprised at the attention on her.

I am very curious about the psychology behind Peggy's appeal to men. To me, Lizzie Olsen is just as busty/attractive, but she doesn't seem to get the fanboy admiration, and I wonder if it's because Peggy's characterisation is almost masculine in her aggression and she's serving as a self-insert for dudebros? (I mean I totally get Nat as someone the dudebros want as GF, but do they really want Peggy the same way? Or do they just want to pair her off with Steve because they don't like Steve and he can exit his way out of the timeline this way?)

As a (rather long) tangent, the MCU has a trend of using meaningless intentional physical violence towards the hero as jokes - Peggy shooting Steve aside, there's also Jane slapping Thor, Hope punching Scott, Gamora socking Peter, and that's just off the top of my head. The scenes are supposed to announce "kickass!" Except...none of these scenes added to the characters, their relationships, or were even congruent with the surrounding narrative.

This trope of heroes being brought down by "their women", is it supposed to say "female empowerment, she's hitting the man"? Is it their idea of true love, that this woman proves she's no damsel in distress by assaulting the man...then nevertheless falls for the man anyway? Or are they projecting an inferiority complex onto the woman, who's able to make the hero bow??

I have to say, having grown up reading shounen manga, this is not at all unique to MCU/Hollywood; I've seen this trope a lot in Japanese (generally male written) media as well.

The thing is, even the MCU itself has had great scenes where a female character squares off against male characters for plot reasons and demonstrates her strength that way - Wanda crushing Vision, Okoye's fight with W'Kabi, Natasha's fights with anyone, Valkyrie's fight with Loki. These are far more believable and admirable than violence that served no purpose.

[kirain]

Hazbin Hotel and VivziePop Drama

I've been hearing/seeing a lot of drama concerning Hazbin Hotel and it's creator VivziePop, and while I don't know her personally or really care what people think, I do hate slander and the spread of misinformation. Truly nothing in this world upsets me more than when people believe rumours while making no effort to fact check, and that's exactly what's happening right now. That said, I wanted to try and clear up some of the rumours going around about Vivzie and the show, because I think some of them are absolutely outrageous and need to be addressed.

1. Vivzie hired an abuser onto the show.

Now, I’m not here to burn anyone at the stake, especially since I don’t know anything about Chris Niosi (the alleged abuser), who I believe openly admitted to the allegations? Regardless, this is a moot point. He’s not credited anywhere at the end of the episode. So either he was booted before production wrapped up or he had nothing to do with the show in the first place.

2. Vivzie supports bestiality.

Admittedly I thought this one might be true, since she draws so many anthropomorphic animals. In the very least, I figured she was probably a furry, but I haven't seen any evidence supporting this accusation either. Near as I can tell, this rumour started for two reasons. One, because of her famous Zoophobia comic, which revolves around a therapist named Cameron who gets assigned to work with human-like animals. Ironically, poor Cameron suffers from crippling zoophobia, which makes for some pretty decent comedy. I didn't read the whole comic because, quite frankly, it’s not my cup of tea and I just don’t have the time. But from what I saw there are no examples of bestiality anywhere in its contents.

Two, this message, which blew up all over social media:

To me, this just proves that people are more interested in virtue signalling than checking to see if their claims are actually true. Everything about this message is 100% false, which I’ll touch on in my next point.

3. Vivzie is a pedophile and she’s drawn child porn.

This is hands down the worst allegation and holy shit, I really wish people would stop using it to defame someone when they don't have any proof. This is a life-ruining accusation and you're disgusting if you believe it based solely on hearsay. This rumour began to spread when Vivzie allegedly shipped the two underage characters in the above photo and drew them NSFW-style. At the time, one character was 19 while the other was 14, and the relationship was a very illegal student-teacher relationship.

This is WRONG! The characters were not 14 and 19, they were actually 18 and 19, the legal age of consent! Additionally, the relationship wasn't student-teacher. One character is a student and the other is Alumni (a student teacher). This one pisses me off the most because it’s obvious the person who sent that message didn’t even bother to conduct any research. They said, “He’s a teacher, she’s a child.” Both characters are MALE!

Since then, Vivzie has apologised for any NSFW art she drew in the past and stated that it's not a reflection of her art today, and I'm inclined to believe her. Almost every artist has drawn NSFW content at some point in their career, and hers wasn't even distasteful. Other than this one example, there is no evidence anywhere that suggests she’s drawn “child porn”. In fact, she’s never even drawn explicit NSFW.

Please stop spreading this rumour. It’s dangerous and completely incorrect.

4. Vivzie said the "N" word!

No, she didn’t. It was a fabricated tweet. That is all.

5. Vivzie is copyright striking every video that criticises her!

No she isn't. YouTube’s DMCA is automatically striking people who are using full clips without permission. Vivzie has gone public several times, telling people exactly how to avoid getting a copy strike from the algorithm, which is something she absolutely does not have to do. At this point, she doesn't owe you anything. In my opinion, she should just sit back and watch these channels burn.

6. Vivzie copies and traces other artists’ work.

This is another one I’ve seen going around, but I looked into it as thoroughly as I could and failed to find any concrete evidence to support the allegations. As of right now, there are only two examples of Vivzie “copying” or “tracing” other artists’ work, and both of them can be explained. The first is a gif she made with a character from her Zoophobia comic, which looked a lot like the girl from ME!ME!ME!:

Damn, that’s pretty incriminating. She obviously stole-- oh, wait. This gif was part of a ME!ME!ME! MEP (multi editor’s project) and Vivzie didn’t take full credit, despite the fact that it’s not even a direct trace. It’s supposed to look like the original, which she fully cited. The second example comes from a short dance sequence from her Timber video, which seems to have been inspired by several Disney movies. As Vivzie herself stated, that was an homage to the original animations. Lots of artists and shows do this, including the beloved Stephen Universe series.

Regardless, this doesn’t count as stealing character designs or plagiarising someone’s work. It’s meant to be respectful, an admiration of other projects. Other than these two instances, however, there is no evidence of her tracing or stealing other people’s art. From what I’ve discovered, all other designs she’s been accused of “stealing” are characters she bought and paid for. They’re quite literally HER characters.

7. Vivzie supports problematic creators.

I’m getting really tired of guilt by association. Vivzie follows and enjoys some controversial figures, but who cares? We can argue all day about whether or not the accusations against them are true, but it ultimately has nothing to do with the show or Vivzie as a person. I do the exact same thing, to be honest-- follow and listen to people on all sides so I can learn, understand, and form my own opinions. The fact that some people think this is bad, to me, is absolutely mesmerising. Vivzie doesn’t control what the people she follows post, and if they do something overly questionable she publicly criticises and denounces it.

From Vivzie:

Now that that’s been dealt with, I’d like to address some complaints/claims about the actual show.

8. Vaggie is an angry Latina stereotype and a lesbian stereotype. Vivzie is appropriating Hispanic culture and misrepresenting the gay for profit.

First off, I see a lot of people passing around yet more misinformation regarding Vivzie's race. So many people seem to think she's white? Well, I'm here to tell you they're wrong. Very incorrect. Vivzie is in fact Latina, and Vaggie is meant to mirror some of her own personality traits.

Second, who is Vaggie mad at? Context matters, and if we take a look at the episode, we see that Vaggie is literally only mad at two specific people: Angel Dust and Alastor. Why? Well, for starters, it's her girlfriend's dream to run a rehab hotel for sinners, and Angel Dust nearly demolishes that dream single-handedly. Vaggie has every right to be over-the-top vitriolic. Then there's Alastor, a known sadist, narcissist, and murderer who loves trapping people in his nefarious schemes. He invites himself in, effectively takes over the hotel, and pushes both her and Charlie aside. At one point he even sexually assaults her by slapping her butt during his musical number. So yeah, I think her seething ire is totally justified. Keep in mind, however, that when she's around Charlie she's calm, collected, and happy. I wouldn't call that a stereotype.

Thirdly, the lesbian stereotypes. I keep hearing this argument but I really don't see it. Both Vaggie and Charlie have so much personality and trust for each other. Maybe I'm wrong, but the stereotype I know always totes a more butch, tomboyish woman with a ditsy, innocent, naive woman. Charlie is optimistic, but she isn't stupid. She refuses to shake Alastor’s hand because she knows he’s likely trying to screw her over. She’s also not entirely innocent herself and uses words like “fuck” and “shit”. I also wouldn’t call Vaggie butch or tomboyish. She has a cute, girly presentation, complete with a pink ribbon in her hair, lace stockings, and a dress. She's protective of her girlfriend, as I think we all are with our partners, and there's nothing wrong with that. They're flawed characters, as every character is meant to be. This isn't a problem.

9. The show is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, blah, blah, blah.

I’m amazed this is even an argument. The show is supposed to be a dark comedy that takes place in HELL. You know, the place the worst of the worst end up after they die? What were you expecting? Everyone gets a shot or two fired at them, but that doesn't make them bad characters nor does it make the show itself horrible. Take, for example, Katie Killjoy, the news reporter so many people are up in arms about. She says she doesn’t “touch the gays” because she has “standards”. Well, here’s a newsflash of my own: we’re not supposed to like her! She’s an antagonist. Not to mention ten seconds later Charlie insults her and isn’t the least bit slighted by her pretentious attitude. The characters are strong and don’t take shit from anyone, because to some degree they’re all terrible people who can throw down when it’s called for.

Obviously if you don’t like the show or think it’s offensive, I’m probably not going to change your mind. That’s perfectly fine. You’re entitled to your opinions and you don’t have to watch the show. Just stop lying and stop trying to take it away from everybody else. Stop attacking Vivzie and spreading misinformation without checking the facts. I realise a lot of people probably aren’t trying to be vindictive and only want to do something good, but just remember this: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[king-maven-calore]

*asks about Mare's M scar turn into another episode of Annie overanalyzing YA books*

this is your fault guys. In trying to make sense of Mare's "decision" to keep the scar, and reading your takes on the matter I started to wonder if there was something more to it than what is offered as an explanation in Mare's PoV. Some parts of the story can't be taken at face value and still expect them to make sense in the established narrative.

⚠️ LONG POST AHEAD ⚠️ and I apologize in advance for my limited English to try to elaborate on such a complex subject.

Anon #1 said: I AGREE WITH YOU SM. I don't understand why Mare kept the scar. Imagine having to explain to your children how you got it...

Anon #2 said: Same. Personally I think she shouldn’t keep it. She claims that she keeps the scar so that it can always remind her of who Maven truly is, but there are literally multiple reminders to remind of who he is. Like the entire Nortan government changing. He was the cause of everything and it caused a domino effect. He caused Shade’s death, babies dying, etc. so all that should be a reminder of who he is imo.

@lucy-the-cat said: Well, in King's Cage she held onto the brand as proof that Maven was irredeemable and didn't deserve sympathy. This framing continued in War Storm, where Mare weaponizes it during the meeting. After killing him, she probably kept it to reassert to herself that she made the right choice.

After killing him in War Storm, she needs to reassert to herself that she made the right choice. Remember that strange scene where she talks to Cal and is all “You’re mad at me for killing your brother” and he’s very confused and she insists “You are you just don’t know it yet”? She’s projecting her guilt over Maven’s death onto him, and in Broken Throne, she sees Cal grieve for the brother that never was, and fears succumbing to the same.

War Storm has a passage where Cal discusses healing some of his scars and Mare retorts that some things should be remembered. But here’s the thing: When a scar heals, the memory of how you got it doesn’t disappear. It’s about not ACTIVELY reminding yourself of it every time you look in the mirror.

That’s self-harm logic. And Mare has always been prone to self-harm, what with her keeping Maven’s letters and admitting to scratching herself in King’s Cage. She got better about it as the books went on, but to me the brand is proof she never fully grew out of it. Maybe she did eventually but humans will do anything to rationalize continuing what we’re already doing.

And yeah, I can see Cal giving up and being like, “FINE I’ll enable you” lol

I think we can all agree that the use of the scar during WS makes sense from a propaganda standpoint, also as a reminder for herself because at that point in the story Maven is still alive and kicking it.

In a world where erasing scars completely is a possibility, it's very interesting that the protagonist chooses to keep it after it served its purpose in the plot. Hence, my problem with the scar starts after the main plot arc ends, when Maven is already gone and the sole presence of the mark becomes a source of retraumatization for Mare.

I really like lucy-the-cat's psychological explanation and I couldn't have worded it better myself. On the other hand, in literature, a wound tells a story.

A scar is a narrative inscribed into the hero's skin, granting them authority over the lived ordeal. Think of the term "Battle scars" something that men used as badges of honor, as proof that they fought in a romanticized war and proved themselves to a patriarchal society that deems violence a form of authority.

Mare takes this conception when she is trying to convince Montfort to go against Maven.

Traumatic memories lack verbal and narrative context; rather, they are encoded in the form of vivid sensations and images (a "death imprint"). The traumatic memory gains destructive force not for the link to the past, but for the repetition in the present of the event that hasn't been fully processed yet.

“You had some scars removed.”

I can only shrug. It’s been weeks since I had a healer erase the older scars across my back and ribs, wiping away the raised edges of white, knotted flesh. Wounds unbecoming of a king. (...) “Some things don’t have to be held on to.”

Her eyes narrow. “And some things do, Cal.”

I can only nod in silent agreement, unwilling to follow her over the precipice of that particular conversation. It won’t lead us anywhere productive. (War Storm ch 23)

If we take a look at the dichotomy of Mare's choice with Cal's, and how it relates to their character arcs, we can see a very common device used in media that employs the damaged body to show the state of the character's soul.

In mainstream media such as Beauty and the Beast, Star Wars, Moon lovers (a K-drama) the redemption of the male protagonist's soul, the ending of their journeys, is marked by the restoration of the body either by transforming back into human (the Beast), the healing of a scar (Kylo Ren/Ben Solo, and Wang So), just to mention a few.

At this point in the story, Cal is nearing his final redemptive act by stepping down from the throne, while Mare is reaching her final destructive act, Maven's murder.

I have scars of every kind, from Maven’s brand, from wounds not properly healed, from my own lightning. But I am not a ruin. Not yet. (WS chapter 8)

What I mean to say is, the scar is as much of a choice as the destruction of her soul in the name of the greater good, which isn't much of a choice at all (narratively speaking). And the permanence of the brand even when in canon she could simply have it healed is the metaphorical repressentation of her healing journey. The healing journey that barely fucking starts at THE END of War Storm, as we all know from the infamous epilogue.

Anyway, I hope that made sense. Here's the article mentioned above ("Scarred narratives and speaking wounds").

[i-did]

hi hello i couldn't sleep last night so i was scrolling thru all ur asks and stuff and ur opinions and analyses are so interesting!!! and then afterwards i was thinking about what u were saying about mlm smut and i'd also been thinking about such things a little bit recently bc like.....at a certain point it becomes quite clear that the vast majority of smut-writing is just imitation. like there's the sex noise verb list and all and the whole general mechanics of the sex and those things just .... replicate over and over. and the whole thing w people writing mlm vs wlw smut regardless of their own sexual orientation..... like i feel like a big part of that is just a self-perpetuating thing. like if u have not had sex and u r getting all ur (pleasure-related) sex ed from fandom (even if u do watch porn, that doesn't rlly tell u how to describe stuff? idk) regardless of What fandom , the majority is going to be mlm smut. which is itself majority imitation of other mlm smut, imitating and imitating back to whoever knows what the first smut fanfic was etc. there's just way More to mimic than there is on the women side of things. which then becomes a self-perpetuating thing, bc the mimicry continues and generates more and more. and---if there are fundamental misunderstandings of anatomy involved---those self-perpetuate as well. and maybe even exaggerate. and yeah. does this all make sense? idk i was just thinking about it. like all the stereotypes and stuff continue bc writers are getting their inspo from other writers rather than their own brains. or something. idk!!!!! it's just all... divorced from reality? bc words. or something!! i hope u get what i'm trying to say. just thoughts i've been thinking. anyway i think ur thoughts are cool. and ur writing. ok bye have a good day!!

Okay yeah this is kinda messy but hope u see this, uhh yeah I think you're right about the echo chamber effect fr about stuff. I think it's a mix of projecting too sometimes. talk more under the cut and also link to a video essay since I love video essays.

Here’s a video that sort of touches on this topic: 

“Gay fanfiction” by Sarah Z. (has CC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8E_C00dKwI

This video begins to talk about fetishization at the end, but also… not really. The words “gay fanfiction” is used as a catchall, when really gay fanfiction is largely mlm written by non-mlm.

Fandom is a largely women's space dominated by the female gaze in a media industry world that is dominated by men and the male gaze. I'm really glad women have this space to explore creativity and queerness, and I don't expect the female gaze to go away, but I am still ultimately bummed out I can’t read most fanfic or interact with most fandom spaces without having fetishization in my face. 

So about 80% of fandom is women, and most of those women aren't straight, but 90% of those women prefer mlm ships. Why don’t they prefer wlw ships? Well definitely part of it is the fact that queerbaiting is centered around white straight men, and then there is also the fact that women tend not to be written as well charcter wise. But the fact still remains that you get jerjean getting priority over Layla and Alvarez who are in canon just as much and are a canon wlw couple who actually interact as well as Alvarez could likely be a woc because of her Hispanic last name. Korasami doesn’t get nearly as much hype as zuko and saka, despite the fact that they are 2 fully dimensional characters who canonly kiss and hold hands, something the creators fought for and ended up having to sacrifice another reboot for. 

I do believe the fandom echo-chamber is largely responsible for… a lot of things, like you're saying. But what's interesting is that the complaints I've heard about visual porn from non mlm in the fandom space is that they can’t get off to it because its for the male gaze and misogynistic usually. But they also don't seem to notice how the mlm smut circles has the female gaze and is also… almost always mlm. If it was a pure anatomical not knowing thing, I get that, but I also think that leads to the question of “then why the male body for porn, and not your own? The one you know and are familiar with?” 

I know some people want to get outside of their own body for porn and don’t want to think of their own anatomy at all, but overall I'm still uncomfortable. If an anglo said “well I watch porn of only Mexicans so I don't self insert” I'm gonna be like … hhhh in a similar way. I understand people “like what they like” but I wish they also noticed said patterns in the first place. I understand the t4t tumblr porn circle, and how it's different from cis people who only watch trans porn. 

I actually wished that instead of fandom focusing on mlm ships where some asshole guy hits on bottom troupe charcter for top troupe character to save, was instead… a wlw character experiencing said shitty getting hit on and other wlw swooping in. what's interesting is fandom writes a lot about misogynistic experiences without often realizing it. Ive read fanfic where guys get called sluts for sleeping with people or called bitch for speaking their mind, these arent things men usually experience, but rather women. Fandom has a lot of internalized misogyny and also queerphobia imo. Women characters often get pushed to the sidelines and men become the canvas for female fans to project onto. 

There is this natural inclination to mlm. When people are talking about “gay shipping” or “gay books” or “gay feels” or even just “gay” mlm is what’s largely in mind. I honestly am kinda saddened by this because if gay fanfiction was really solely about writing more to feel represented, then you would see a lot of bi and ace and lesbian rep, but this isn't the case. Queer women are seriously underrepresented, and I want to hear their stories and read them in fanfiction as well as published. 50% of lgbt literature is mlm, and of that its largely written by women. Becky Albertalli, Rainbow Rowell, Maggie Stiefvater, are the YA big names and are all women writing mlm. Red white and royal blue is written by Casey McQuiston and Captive prince (which is not YA) is written by C. S. Pacat, who is non-binary, but is also TME and not mlm. These are all the big names in mlm lit, behind them is some gay men, but honestly their stories aren't preferred, they're not the right “flavor” for the consumers usually, who are largely women. In general YA consumers and authors are women, but I wish that they… just wrote about women too. I think there is a certain… snowball effect to the overrepresentation of mlm representing the whole LGBT community that leads to fetishization, as well as misogyny playing a factor in: less women characters being written well to write fanfic on, when they are written well they're taken less seriously or the audience struggles to relate to them, they're less marketable then men. 

Idk I never feel “seen” or “represented” by any of the books above, which don't address boyhood and manhood and queerness intersecting really, and AFTG doesn’t either. I relate to AFTG as a trauma victim who has experienced a lot of what many of the characters go through and have gone through in the EC as well as them just overall being very well written characters, but I don't relate to it as a mlm really. I've never seen like.. gay voice or being straight passing or femphobia or how boyhood can be affected from a young age by those around you sensing you're ‘other’ or if you didn't experience this you feel outside the mlm community. Let alone sub cultures like bear and leather and pup, at most you see the word “he's such a twink” in fandom which... i fr hate non mlm using that word because it's usually used to replace the f-slur essentially, used derogatorily or to call him “such a bottom” and stuff like that. It’s like a joke or an insult.

Long story short, idk mang this was a ramble and I think I'm coning down with something. I wanna see more queer women rep and women authors writing about being a queer woman too. I think it's a complex web of fetishization and a bit of forbidden love yaoi culture (or it used to be in the BOYXBOY days) as well as misogyny on an industry level, creator level, as well as reader/consumer and fandom level. I don’t think it’s inherently wrong to explore other peoples stories and what we read has to be segregated, “only mlm are allowed to read and write mlm, only wlw are allowed to read and write wlw,” but I also think author’s intent and audience and background is telling, as well as overall statistics. Like about an hour ago I was looking for cookbooks in spanish or in english, and I was looking for some mexican food cook books, but I had to look for them using words in spanish because otherwise what came up was a bunch of “fiesta party, easy as uno dos tres authentic cooking!” and I was like… hm. Since I could tell they were marketing to anglos. (also the author’s last names were like michelle smith, james cooper, and this could be for a variety of reasons, but I trust Hispanic names more tbh and deadass would look at the authors pictures and if they had other books in Spanish or what their specialties were.)

anyways. not sure how to end this. uhm if anyone has any book recs (my to read list is like 500 books tho no joke) preferably not YA white mlm written by a white lady, hopefully queer women written by queer woman, LMK, I need more wlw and queer women stories on my list. I have a decent amount but always looking for more. I kinda wanna link my goodreads or my storygraph but I also don't want to get doxxed and it has my legal name on it so.

Also, I'm dyslexic and using spell check but if there's like some wild typos my b.

[commajade]

Honestly the emotional expressiveness of Korean culture was the first think I really really noticed about it. I wasn’t sure what to call it for a while, but it just stuck out to me like a sore thumb bc that is the opposite of what people in the west act like Korean culture is like.

Especially the amount of public emotional expressiveness and vulnerability allowed to people who are viewed as men (both in the actual world and in media). My whole childhood I was fed this narrative that Asian cultures were emotionally suppressed or at least that emotion was incredibly private. I was taught that by my own asian friends. And here I am seeing men and male characters crying? In public. In TV shows, in movies. In real life. And not just a tear coming out of their eyes. Sobbing.

And its not even a issue, it doesn’t change how other’s view them. Meanwhile, in the so called enlightened west, I’d never seen a man sob before in my life. Not in person, not on a screen. I’d rarely even seen men cry in any way without it being a thing. Without it potentially threatening their masculinity. And this isn’t really even an example of the actual notable emotional expressiveness of Korean culture, Bc men having suppressed emotions vs not is because of issues in modern western culture not some special Korean culture innovation.

first thing is that asia is fuckin huge and each asian country has their own schema of what the rest of asia is like and a diplomatic identity and a people's identity (in fact many regionalized people's identities with their own power dynamics). so the emotional suppression is entirely from the trope of the inscrutable oriental, the quiet stoic asian. here's the tvtropes page:

this isn't just a media trope it's a trope that white people collectively have about asian people and will project on us.

also american masculinity is truly something newly invented as the end point of post enlightenment individualism and the rest of the world incl europe didn't have that before. it's built to keep social order airtight and the US is the reigning cultural force of global racial capitalism so that is projected onto every other culture.

[just-antithings]

honestly the Hetalia talks are making me feel better about liking Hetalia 😩 for a few months I've been on the down low about liking it and ffs, every time someone pops a post about "Hetalia is nazi propaganda" the OP is literally someone who knows nothing about Hetalia and cannot bring actual decisive evidence beyond vague hearsay ("I heard from a mutual who had a friend who knew a person that liked Hetalia-") or use another series' content or creator (AOT) to distract people from questioning how Hetalia or Himaruya is "nazi propaganda" despite having no evidence from the series or creator to backup that claim.

OR, most especially, they're projecting their problems onto other people (namely, blaming the fandom and other people about the nazi or confederate fetish they had when they were a 'edgy I like Dark Humour' tween (or as I noticed, because they had heritage from Germany/the South)).

Seriously, yes, there are issue in Hetalia, but whatever issues in Hetalia is also just an standard anime issue.

Lot of white or light-skin characters? Speaking as a brown person, yeah, that's tiring... But how is that different from other manga and anime (hell, that shit even applies to Western media so yall stfu when Western media is just as behind as Japan? (also why is Japan responsible for Western audience representation? Why aren't you taking that issue to Western studios?)) Fucking hell, it's rare for a character to be brown without being the tanned athlete or gyaru in manga/anime - so expecting more than one genuine brown character in anime is laughable when colorism/racism is still just an issue in Japan as it is in the West.

There's "more men than woman" in Hetalia? And? Really how is that different from any other series? It is an issue, sure, but to pretend that it's an issue that started with Hetalia is disingenuous as fuck. (Especially because you look at these anti-Hetalia fans and they'll be into series with just as a severe gender-ratio. Not much a pressing issue as they pretend it to be.)

It's "a yaoi series that caters to fujoshi" - look no matter how much shipping goes on in the fandom, Hetalia is not "a yaoi" (though, nothing wrong with that), and seriously, there is a lot of nonbinary and male fans that ship within the fandom too. Using "fujoshi" is just a misleading excuse to be misogynistic and transphobic (I've seen yall anti-Hetalia fuckers accusing trans men of "fetishizing gay men as a lifestyle").

And lastly, the idea that harassing and shaming Hetalia fans to "protect Jewish and fans of color"? Bull. Crap. Now, is there Hetalia fans who express antisemitic or racist beliefs? Yes, I've ran into them. I'm also ran into Fire Emblem, Pokémon, and Animal Crossing fans who expressed antisemitic or racist beliefs and in those fandoms, I've been told to just "drop it", "leave it", "just ignore them" (yanno, as a brown person). Hetalia is just the scapegoat other people use so as not to address the antisemites and racists within their own fandom. Select Hetalia circles (read: white prevalent, because I'm in largely POC circles) have issues on addressing those problems in our fandom, but so does every other damn fandom too! Because it's "negative drama with bad vibes".

Anyways, Hetalia isn't a perfect series and the English dub has some terrible dark humor, but the current fandom is nothing like the fandom from the early 2000/2010s because the "older fandom" (i.e. the edgy kids and teens that look at Hetalia as their cringe phase because of socialized bigotry and a lack of proper social behavior) has largely left, and those who stayed do our damnist to instill better behavior because we do acknowledge that select behaviors is bad (i.e. wubbifying or romanticizing nazism, the confederate South, ussr, etc, or current events/tragedies/politics).

But ah yes, none of that happens because we're a hivemind who all "went through a nazi phase because the fandom embraces it" (newsflash, we aren't, we don't, and hell that's a lot of projecting personal failures).

hell yes anon go off!!!!!!